Akatsuki Japan – International run of Japan men’s basketball team

Akatsuki Japan is realizing my basketball dream as a Japanese American.

I’ve always wanted to play basketball competitively. However, I am all but destined for a career in the Sunday night leagues. 

Luckily for me though, I get to vicariously live out my dreams each year during the NBA season.

This past summer brought a bit of an early treat for a basketball aficionado like myself.  

Just a couple of weeks ago, the 2023 Fédération Internationale de Basketball (FIBA) World Cup played across the Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia.

Germany defeated Serbia for the Gold, but their performance did not dominate the headlines. Instead, it was Akatsuki Japan – the Japan Men’s Basketball Team.

Akatsuki Japan’s inspiring performance captivated the hearts of many.

Despite an elimination during pool play — they earned an accomplishment that they had not achieved in forty-eight years: an outright qualification for the next Olympic Games.

Akatsuki Japan breaking the mold

Perhaps more notable though is just how the team got there.

Between the comeback wins and late-game heroics, what shined through the most were the individual efforts to step-up into the spotlight and be “that guy” to drive the team to victory.

To many, this came as a stark strategic deviation from Japan’s typical prioritization of team-centric play-calling and fundamentals.

To me, this was a Western influenced adaptation in athletic culture . A noted change in sport that very well could facilitate a new wave of play more apt to fostering newsworthy, “star” talent from Japan. 

The FIBA World Cup saw Japan collect three victories overall, with each one seemingly having a different hero. 

Their first win was a hard fought comeback over Finland where the team would erase an eighteen point deficit, mainly led by Yuki Kawamura’s twenty-five points and nine assists.

Against Venezuela history seemingly repeated itself with Japan once again playing comeback. This time Makoto Hiejima and Yuta Watanabe led with twenty-three and twenty-one points respectively.

During their final game, where they’d ultimately punch their tickets to the 2024 Paris Games, Keisei Tominaga rose to the occasion and shot six-of-eight from beyond the arc to ice the game.

This willingness displayed across Akatsuki Japan to step up and play the role of superstar is astounding — for a couple of reasons. 

Embracing being the star

Firstly, given the context of this global tournament, having a different leading player each night through these high profile games was unconventional (in the best of ways), as teams nowadays typically run offenses through a specific player — think Lebron James or Kevin Durant.

It was refreshing to see multiple names fill up the stat sheet. More importantly, I also felt as though it was indicative of a shifting attitude regarding something greater.

Asian athletes are slowly but surely welcoming a “star quality,” and embracing a sense of individual accountability for an entire group’s actions and accomplishments—something that typically has not been very “Asian.”

Historically, Asian athletics have mirrored much of how our cultures operate — a collectivist strategy with everybody accepting their given role and emphasizing cohesion in order to succeed as a whole.

But what I’m beginning to see are select athletes breaking out of the mold. Now, more than ever, players like Tominaga, Hiejima, and Watanabe are seizing the opportunity to rewrite Asian athleticism. They help lead a movement that could drastically influence the global perception of sports in Asia for generations to come.

Akatsuki Japan changes the narrative

Where there are evolving internal attitudes, there are bound to be ever-changing external ones.

Now it certainly won’t happen by the start of next year’s Olympic Games. But the more and more instances there are of Asian basketball players embracing stardom, the more likely they will be recognized professionally.

If this novel embrace of individual greatness and stardom as displayed by Akatsuki Japan becomes more of a norm, Western interpretation of Asian basketball players will change favourably. 

Beyond the FIBA World Cup we’ve seen other instances of this happening.

Perhaps most notably was Jeremy Lin’s improbable run, whose life changed overnight when the shorthanded New York Knicks were forced to give him a shot.

Known best as “Linsanity,” this string of performances embodied the individualism that we’ve begun to see more frequently, while also maintaining the team-centric mentality that we’ve come to expect.       

More recently, we saw something similar with Japanese basketball player Rui Hachimura — albeit not the scale of Linsanity.

His depiction in Western media changed noticeably following a stellar postseason performance. He was on his way out of the NBA if not for a fresh opportunity with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Rather, he exceled and helped lead the team to multiple victories over the higher-seeded Memphis Grizzlies. This past offseason he received a sizable three year, fifty-one million dollar contract. 

Life and basketball

Stories like Lin, and Hachimura, and Akatsuki Japan stand for much of how we’ve been taught to lead our lives. Yet they also are a marked beginning of a new wave in Asian representation.

There is now a newfound individualism at play. It has not arisen at the expense of the greater good — rather because of it. 

This subtle interweaving of Asian subculture into sports, where one’s personal pride in meeting and surpassing what is expected, is a key factor in why we’ve seen a proliferation of success in the athletic world across the past couple of decades.

This movement though should not be misconstrued as a Westernization of playing style. It is our own way of displaying greatness under unpredictable circumstances. It is an overall willingness to step into the spotlight if it serves to benefit the whole.

So while Akatsuki Japan may have missed the mark in this past FIBA World Cup, they’ve proven how actions and abilities on a basketball court can often represent so much more.